Journal of Emerging Scholarship

Urban heat islands arise when the surrounding temperature of an urban area is warmer than adjacent rural areas. As a growing percentage of the population is exposed to heat islands from urban development expanding, more people are exposed to a range of health and environmental problems. Heat island effects are typically studied in urban settings, where they are most prominent; however, we wanted to determine if these effects could be observed on a smaller scale at our college campus. We investigated heat island effects on Anne Arundel Community College’s Arnold campus by assessing surface types, surface temperatures, and air temperatures. Using ImageJ software and Google satellite images, we quantified the amount of each land type on campus. Of the 883,848 square meters of land on the Arnold campus, we found that forested surfaces comprise 52%, followed by parking lots (21%), fields (16%), and mixed-use land (11%). Air temperatures were recorded over three days in June 2024 using 15 Elitech DataLogger RC-5+ sensors placed across forested and residential areas, fields, parking lots, and central campus locations. We found that forested areas on campus have significantly lower temperatures than areas with man-made infrastructure and paved surfaces. Surprisingly, air temperatures for fields and parking lots were nearly indistinguishable. Our data suggests a localized heat island effect that could inform future policy and infrastructure improvements.